The Anti-Money Laundering capacity building programme in Africa

Why do we work with AFROSAI-E and African Supreme Audit Institutions?

According to estimations from the United Nations, Africa is losing $88,6 billion a year in illicit financial flows, which impedes progress and hinders the sustainable development goals. Illegal money laundering is a major problem in Africa, it drains resources, obstructs growth and encourages corruption. Many African countries recognise the importance of anti-money laundering measures and have made efforts to set up regulatory frameworks, enact legislation, and establish regulatory bodies to counter money laundering and monitor compliance with anti-money laundering policies.

Supreme Audit Institutions play an important role not only in monitoring anti-money laundering policies and implementation, but also in monitoring national enforcement and anti-money laundering agencies to see if the policies and strategies are useful and working, so that it becomes clear what further planning, programming, resources, and coordination are needed for successful money laundering investigations and prosecutions.

This capacity building programme concentrated on anti-money laundering is, like our other projects, demand driven. The collaboration is focused on the strengthening of the quality of performance audit in the field of illicit financial flows, focusing on anti-money laundering. Additionally, the programme focuses on designing guidelines for anti-money laundering auditing and strengthening cooperation between the partner Supreme Audit Institutions and the (regional bodies of) Financial Action Task Force (FATF). The FATF leads global action to tackle money laundering, terrorist, and proliferation financing, setting global standards to reduce risks and assessing whether countries are taking effective action. 

Within the Anti-Money Laundering capacity building programme, the Netherlands Court of Audit works together with AFROSAI-E and the Supreme Audit Institutions of Kenya, Sierra Leone, Uganda, and Zambia.

The programme is currently funded by the Netherlands Court of Audit, with the prospect of external funding.

Regional collaboration

During the Anti-Money Laundering capacity building programme, we work together with AFROSAI-E and the 4 African Supreme Audit Institutions in a regional context. This focuses on going through an audit cycle (audit proposal, implementation and data collection, and reporting). Furthermore, guidelines will be developed for anti-money laundering auditing and attention is dedicated to the further dissemination of this information within the African region.